What's in a Name
by Suffering Angel
Summary: Sado Yasutora talking about the one most important thing to him, the two most important people to him, and the thing which keeps him going.


I don't own Bleach.

A/N: YEY! Finally I got a concept for what's probably my One True Pairing in the show XD Short by my standards but was more for venting and boredom than for some higher cause.

So here it is.

Enjoy my first Shonen ai bleach fic :)

_**What's in a Name**_

My name isn't 'Chado'.

While it is apparently a popular variation of my surname, my surname in itself is not my own name.

My name is Yasutora, named after my family's hopes and wishes for my future.

Some of them got fulfilled.

Others…

While many wouldn't even look at me, one man seemed to love saying that name. Especially when he'd call me by it, his voice would sound soothing and sweet, his show of hope for who was then nothing more than an angry and confused boy.

"Yasutora", he'd say with either happiness or suppressed grief, yet always with warmth and pride, at what I was during the better times, and what he hoped for me to become during the worse.

I wear that man's legacy around my neck, the thing worth more than my life.

That man is dead now, long gone in both death and burial location.

I can barely visit him anymore, and my greatest fear is of forgetting the sound of his voice.

For quite a while I hung on to the fading memories as I just went on living.

Refusing to fight; refusing to hurt. Telling myself it was ok that I got hurt.

That I somewhat deserved it.

That was when that day came.

The day I met the man who proved to me I could respect people again, but above all else, respect myself.

I don't think I could ever stop respecting him.

He was being beaten up worse than I've ever seen anyone get before in my life.

It was easy to see why he was being picked on; his orange hair and relatively tall and built figure would've probably made him as easy a pray as my obvious ethnic features made me.

Any normal person probably would've left him alone; better him than me, I should've thought, and went on with my life, but at just that moment I heard him.

_-What're those big fists for, Yasutora?-_

Abuelo's voice came loud and clear, like it hasn't in months before that, and before I knew it, the one being beaten up was me.

It was alright, though.

He was alright, and I was satisfied with having heard Abuelo's voice again.

The name he gave me didn't seem to matter too much beyond that.

The next time we met… you could say that was the first time my life was truly on the line.

Death was no stranger to me, having taken all of my family away, nor was I afraid of it. The people I lost were all waiting for me on the other side, and I had very few attachments on this one.

What happened back then was that the little meaning I had left in my life was about to be taken away from me, and I was sentenced to continue living after the deed was to be completed.

"Go off and die", he told me, almost mad at himself for taking so long to gloat at me instead of just finishing it all off.

I don't like hating people.

I don't think I've ever hated anyone that badly before.

I like to think I won't in the future.

No matter how much I struggled, I couldn't break free and protect the one thing I still managed to hold dear.

It was like having Abuelo die in front of my eyes again, only this time, I wasn't getting a keepsake.

The tiger I was named after was anything but peaceful; all I could see was red, and the sound of my blood pumping through my veins was all I could hear…

That, and the almost mocking cackles which accompanied rapid footsteps coming in our directions.

When I first saw him, all I could think of was that a guardian angel was sent from heaven to protect the one most important thing to me.

I never could understand people saying his name was cute; he was too strong to be cute.

He came flying at the one holding Abuelo's memento as though he had wings, but before long I realized he was merely human… a strong, tough, die-hard human…

But human nonetheless.

He bled, and he limped, and his black eye refused to let go for about a month afterwards.

Nonetheless he smiled at me, sprawled on the floor at my feet, downright grinning as he forced that promise upon me. At the time I was too shocked to even think how stupid he sounded.

"I'll fight for you", he announced as he coughed some blood aside. This complete stranger, whom I've met on a personal level maybe three times in total, said this.

I knew I'd have to give something back.

I just wasn't expecting this -

"In return, though, you'll fight for me."

And as though we've known each other forever, he held out Abuelo's coin – without a scratch on it – as he concluded –

"It's a promise, man."

Yes. Yes, it is.

I've yet been able to return that promise.

Even when I tried my hardest, I ended up being once again protected by him.

We fight, but he is the only one risking his life for others. I'm not that righteous as to think I'm not trying to make myself feel less in his debt, though that's only part of it.

He'd say I'm wrong. Say I was the one who pulled him through. Say that when it came down to it, I did what I could, and that's why we're both alive right now.

It doesn't stop me from feeling my sacrifice, in comparison with his, was small. Insignificant and useless. Like I felt my life was up to that day.

So I'll let him call me that.

I'll let him tell others to call me that, and I'll let them call me that.

Because I haven't returned the promise yet.

Because that's what he gave me while smiling, and reminded me I was still alive.

"Chado".

That's the name Ichigo gave me.

It's a promise.


End file.
